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First look at the new ProtecTIER DD6

A couple of weeks ago IBM announced the new DD6 model of the TS7650G ProtecTIER Deduplication Gateway. It will be generally available tomorrow, on March 11th.

Let’s look at the official announcement first:

The most visible change is that this model comes with a greatly reduced footprint. With its 2U height, it supports up to two nodes in clustered or non-clustered configurations:

Compared to the currently available DD5 version (with 14U height for the clustered version), this is an 85% reduction in footprint. And within these 2U, you receive the same value for your data center as with the previous ProtecTIER DD5 version:

The ProtecTIER TS7650G model DD6 now comes with IBM ProtecTIER Software V3.4, which contains IBM’s proven data factoring technology HyperFactor™ for data deduplication. This means it uses in-line deduplication, which is a main advantage over the post processing technology of competitive solutions. You can achieve up to 25:1 deduplication factoring, which is proven by the several thousand boxes which already use this technology in the field!

The ProtecTIER DD6 comes with a performance of 2500 MB/s for backup and 3200 MB/s for restore. With repository sizes of up to 1 PB, this throughput is a significant factor for the success of the ProtecTIER solutions in the enterprise storage market.

Not to hide the detail, the ProtecTIER Software V3.4 only supports VTL and FSI interfaces. IBM removed OST support, which still remains available with ProtecTIER Software V3.3. Looking at the number of installed OST versions, I believe this is a reasonable step, focusing on the interfaces that are “really” demanded by customers.

Want some early real life impressions?

During the last weeks and months, we (the European Level 2 support team) have been able to take a closer look at the DD6 hardware and the V3.4 software, while working with IBM ProtecTIER development.

This was a very positive experience! The solution design (based on the previous ProtecTIER versions) is mature, the new hardware is very reliable, the software stable. We found several design and support enhancements “under the hood”, but you might be more interested in our user experience:

The machine boots up very fast, and according to first benchmarks delivers even better performance than its predecessor. Of course we need to wait for the official numbers, but the DD6 and V3.4 are really a combination to look forward to!

By the way:In October IBM announced the creation of the Service Management Connect (SMC) pages that provide easy access to information about products, announcements and a centralized Q&A forum.

Just recently, the ProtecTIER SMC pages have been fully updated with the latest information related to the mentioned ProtecTIER version V3.4.

I encourage you to access the SMC, where you can find all the details about the ProtecTIER DD6 at the following link: